Missouri State's Kennedy Taylor had a career game vs. UIC. Her coach thinks she's capable of more.

When the Lady Bears are in need of a bucket, there's a good chance they just dribble the ball up the court and toss the ball down to Kennedy Taylor underneath. It's that simple.

"It is very much ideal," junior guard Paige Rocca laughed. "It is very easy."

Taylor, the 6-foot-3 sophomore transfer forward from Colorado, uses her size and strength to find her spot. Once she gets it, which she typically does, she turns around and tosses it into the basket. Not many have been able to slow it down.

"I won't say that it's easy," Taylor said. "It's definitely a lot of hard work because there are a lot of good posts in this conference. It's never easy."

Taylor made it look that way in the Lady Bears' 68-57 win over Illinois Chicago on Saturday afternoon at Great Southern Bank Arena. In the team's fifth-straight win, she had another career game: going for 25 points on 12 of 19 shooting with 15 boards and six assists.

It continued an excellent season for someone the Lady Bears are going to want to build around for years to come. The sophomore who didn't see the court much as a freshman in Boulder has already made herself known as one of the best post players in the Missouri Valley Conference.

And her head coach thinks she's capable of so much more.

"I think she's got so much in her," first-year head coach Beth Cunningham said. "I kept telling her 'want the ball and own the paint' and when KT's active, she's really good. She started to assert herself and obviously ended up, statistically, with a career game. But I think she's got a lot more in her."

When the game concluded, Taylor was averaging 13 points while leading the league in rebounding with 9.8 per game in conference-only play. She's the top rebounder on a team that ranks No. 6 in the nation in rebound margin.

She asserted herself in the second half by scoring 15 of her 25 points along with eight of her 15 boards. Missouri State trailed the Flames 36-31 at the break before the Lady Bears held them to only six makes from the field over the final 20 minutes.

That included containing UIC standout Jaida McCloud who had it easy in the first half by missing only one of her eight shots for 16 points. In the second half, she was 0 for 3 from the field with only a single point from the foul line.

The Lady Bears got its second-half scoring from Taylor and Rocca, who scored 10 of her 12 in the final two quarters.

"We know that the second half is always our half," Rocca said. "We just needed to lock in and guard ball screens better and we did."

Missouri State (14-7, 9-3) remains in the thick of the Missouri Valley Conference race while 1.5 games behind first-place Illinois State (16-5, 10-1) for the league lead with Northern Iowa (14-6, 9-2) sandwiched in as second place. The Lady Bears will go to Bradley (3-19, 0-11) on Friday before a rematch with the Redbirds on Sunday in Normal.

The Lady Bears won't be home until Feb. 17 when they host Murray State at 6 p.m.

A lot will be on the line for the Lady Bears with each game for the remainder of the season. They've shown they're capable of winning any game and they've had moments where they've shown they're capable of losing them as well.

If winning games is as easy as getting the ball down low to Taylor, look for her to continue to shine. If Taylor turns into the even-better player that Cunningham says she can be, everyone should look out.

"Her stats are phenomenal but I'm not looking at the stats," Cunningham said. "I'm just looking at some offensive rebounds that maybe she didn't finish or collect for herself. There are opportunities where she can post up more and be OK with just sliding up to the elbow. She could have inserted herself a little more and been more of a presence inside. Regardless of what her stats are, I don't go on stats to go with what I think she can do.

"Obviously, they're phenomenal and I think most coaches in the country would take 25 and 15. I think she's got even more in her than that."

Wyatt D. Wheeler is a reporter and columnist with the Springfield News-Leader. You can contact him at 417-371-6987, by email at wwheeler@news-leader.com or Twitter at @WyattWheeler_NL. He's also the co-host of Sports Talk on Jock Radio weekdays from 4-6 p.m.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State Lady Bears beat Illinois Chicago in MVC women's hoops